I picked up the Southtown Star a few minutes ago to see if they had a story on the great game played in Herscher, IL for IHSA 2-A Sectional between Chicago's Leo High School Lions and the Fighting Irish of Bishop McNamara Kankakee, IL.

Nope. Swell coverage of New Trier, which was located north of Madison Ave. last time I looked. New Trier, as I recall is in Winnetka, with a campus Northfield.

The Leo Scores were available.

I witnessed a great game in Herscher, Illinois last night. I taught at Bishop Mac from 1975-1988 and know many of the parents of kids on the Fighting Irish roster, having had the poor kids in my English classes. I saw the once beefy Kyle Turro, an outstanding football player, know lithe of frame due to parenting five bairns himself. I saw Julie Mowrey, now a teacher at MAC and the stunning Donna Douglas who continues to look like a prom queen/volleyball stand-out. Dave Hoekstra, who suffered my American and British Lit torments salved by my late wife Mary's art instruction in the 1980's, is the proud father of Mac's Center Mike Hoekstra who dominated the boards all night long. There was Scott O'Brien and his mom watching hot shooting Guard Mitch O'Brien. Scott was a great Mac player himself.

Bishop McNamara controlled the game under the boards and from the free-throw line, as well as outside shooting. Leo was plagued by the invisible cover over the hoops all night it seemed and our free throw shots were colder than a mother-in-law's kiss. Leo President and hardwood veteran of our three-floor gym, Dan McGrath kept the stats - " We are 2-10 in free throws."

Leo brought a Fan bus packed with kids and Leo Alumni and their spirited joyful noise got our guys to dig deeper and close the deficit with the fiery will of LION!

With two minutes to go, led by the outstandingly aggressive play of Kieron Bragg(34), Jarrod Cooper (20), Martez Hampton (13) and the star of the comeback Tybias Scott (3) Leo tied the Irish at the buzzer.

I missed most of the Leo dominated OT 4minutes, because one of our most loyal Alums lost a valuable item that fell under the Herscher bleachers. As Director of Development, yours truly crawled under the stands in a futile search and was joined by decorated Vietnam Veteran and Leo Hall of Fame-er Jack Farnan. Herscher High School football coach John Wakey and I shared remembrances of days past amid the gum, pop, popcorn and snot rags, " Hickey, you ever learn anything about football?"

Not a whit, John, but thanks for asking. Always a sound and healthful thing to be reminded of one's less than formidable gifts. John Wakey is a man and a half and credit to the teaching professional. We climbed out from under the stands without finding a very precious item lost. With prayers to St. Anthony it will turn up.

Leo controlled the OT. Bishop McNamara is a magnificent team and a great school. I spent some of the happiest years of my very happy life there. The Lions managed to score more baskets in the Over Time.

The Lions were tested by the Fighting Irish. The Finals are Friday in Herscher.

Interim Executive Director Mary Shaver told the papers she could not discuss personnel issues. She did not return telephone messages from The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The poor girl went from bagging 100K to eating worms in Costa Rica - life's viscissitudes.

Mrs. Blagojevich was fired almost immediately after her husband was cuffed by the Feds; however, the same folks hired her for some reason at a husky salary, I might add. That is Charity these days.

I have been working in and around charity since 1991. Mostly, I work with private family foundations with, in charitable circles, modest piles of loot. They are not the Ford, Hearst, Joyce, MacArthur, Polk Brothers, or God forbid, the Woods Fund. There's charity . . . and then there's Charity.

I also have a great deal of luck taping local companies for support - Wells Fargo, The John Buck Company, McDonalds & etc. Law Firms with Leo Alumni are very generous, as well.

CHARITIES - Wood Fund, Joyce and MacArthur play big league politics. Those charities pay hugely and grant magnificently to connected and sanctioned entities.

It seems to me that since the early 1990's more of the Big Charities play politics rather than philanthropy. In fact, some family members of the MacArthur Foundation beefed to the press in the mid-1990s about the radicalization of their family fortunes by hand-picked boards of directors. I recall the Chicago Tribune running a series of such articles back then, but no such inquiry seems to arouse the tepid souls of editorial boards these days. The Annenburg Foundation, once a rock-ribbed conservative entity was handed over to the likes of Bill Ayers and folded into the Woods Fund Web. No story there.

Recently Hull House caved in under the burden of . . . well, someone is asking. Dennis Byrne, an old timey news guy, takes hard look at why that well-larded CHARITY went alewive.

Take Chicago's historic Hull House, the "crown jewel of settlement houses," which went belly up. A tragedy, indeed. The conventional, and correct, wisdom is that it became too dependent on government largesse. Yet, it's too easy to blame someone else, namely the stingy government.

The signs were there. The Better Business Bureau, in its last review of Hull House, found that it failed to meet some standards for charity accountability. It cited insufficient board oversight, lack of transparency in certain financial matters and inadequate reporting of its activities.

In 2009, the federal Pension BenefitGuaranty Corp.announced its takeover of Hull House's pension plan, whose liabilities for employees and retirees amounted to $11.1 million. Hull House Executive Director Clarence Wood at the time called the group's financial position solid, saying, "We are not about to close our doors."

And why would he want to? According to the last public disclosure I could find (2008), he was paid $283,000. As much as that might surprise many people laboring in the vineyards of public service for much more modest sums, it's not that unusual for nonprofit bosses. Scanning public records, I discovered top salaries and benefits in many Chicago-area nonprofits were in the reasonable, if not humble range. Then there were those that zoomed into the stratosphere, from $300,000 annually to a good deal more than $1 million. You can, and should, check out your favorite charity by examining its Internal Revenue Service Form 990 (Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax), available on the Economic Research Institute and other Internet sites.

Those high salaries rile Rick Roberts, who received from President George H.W. Busha Point of Light award for his work in the 1990s as CEO of the former Chicago Christian Industrial League, a social service agency serving the homeless.

"The CEO of any tax exempt charity must be held to a higher standard," he said. "With limited private dollars available and massive public budget deficits, why should any organization receive preferential tax treatment, let alone expect tax deductible private donations when the key people in that organization are enriching themselves, even if it's legal?

Roberts wanted to make clear that he wasn't indicting all nonprofits, naming Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army as examples of organizations serving the needy without enriching their employees or CEOs. Others may pay high salaries but do an especially good job, such as the Greater Chicago Food Depository. It's "doing not only a remarkable service but doing so to save money for hundreds of other nonprofits," he said.

Roberts sees too many nonprofits gaming the system, such as Illinois hospital executives plunging into debt to fund exorbitant expansions, and not incidentally to justify their plush salaries. He also warns about the increasing trend of nonprofits turning their operations over to for-profits so they can avoid the IRS' Form 990 disclosure requirements.

"If your goal in life is to help the poor rebuild their lives and heal their minds or bodies by working in a charitable endeavor, then accept the fact that you're not in the private sector where capitalist standards of compensation are an appropriate goal," he said. "It doesn't mean paying pauper wages. Just reasonable ones."

Today the belly-up museum and charity boasts the fine contributions to urban living by the Conservative Vice Lords. Charities -the bigger ones, always managed to attract program directors who spent far too much time with the Testors Glue tubes in youth. Thus, one can also understand its failure to attract any public willing to toss away a ten-spot, or more to honor gang-bangers, or other miscreants and perverts in a celebration of diversity.

Dennis Byrne, a Chicago writer, blogs in The Barbershop at ChicagoNow. dennis@dennisbyrne.net

Patty Blagojevich, briefly, received a pretty handsome pay package for her experience as a fund-raiser, but the board of CCIL took a real hard look at that salary once her hubby did the perp-walk.

Hull House was founded by Jane Addams and her special friend Ellen Gates Starr in 1889 with a donation of the mansion by the Hull Family and help from her Alderman Johnny Powers. Jane Addmas, as phony and homely an old broad as ever wore a page-boy, really saw her settlement house 'take off' after the 1904 Stockyard Strike. Jane and her short-haired activist intimates sold out the strikers - it's in the Chicago Tribune by the way.

Charity is good business. Dennis Byrne is doing a great job in calling public attention to the disconnect - philathropy and business . . .monkey business.

Leo High School won their latest track and field state title last May by one point. This marked the school’s sixth state championship. When Leo won its first state title in 1981, it became the first Catholic school to take the top trophy in track and field, and no other Catholic school in Illinois has done that since then.

But the biggest number for the Leo track team may well be zero. That is the number of indoor and outdoor practice facilities the team has–none at all–meaning one of the state’s top track teams trains by running laps and hurdles in the school’s hallways after class.

Leo is hardly the only school dealing with sub-par practice facilities: In fact, no Chicago public school has an indoor track. But Leo is the only Chicago school to win a state title in track and field in the last 15 years, a championship no Chicago Public Schools team has claimed since 1974.

“I think it would be easy to get a case of the poor-me’s based on a lack of facilities,” said Jim Prunty, president of the Chicago Catholic League. “But the fact of the matter is that in Chicago, you would be hard pressed to find a school with really great facilities. It’s a reality we’re all dealing with.”

The Illinois High School Association surveys high schools every year on its website regarding track and field facilities at state schools in order to determine postseason sites. However, many schools do not complete the survey, making it difficult to determine how many of the 777 IHSA schools have their own tracks.

“It’s not uncommon for teams all over the state to be running the halls or the stairs if they want to get started on conditioning early. Most schools in Illinois don’t have an indoor facility,” said Ron McGraw, an assistant executive director with the IHSA.

“Having facilities doesn’t make you a state champion and not having them obviously doesn’t keep you from succeeding.”

Track and field hit its peak in the U.S. almost three decades ago when American athletes consistently brought home Olympic medals for the sport. Its low visibility since then has been one of the reasons why fewer young athletes get involved with the sport. Funding for track and field programs also has dropped, said a spokesperson for USA Track and Field.

In 2010 CPS cut pay for assistant high school track coaches in an effort to save money in the district’s budget. According to information provided by CPS, there about 70 high schools with track and field teams. Eighteen schools have outdoor facilities on school property or at a nearby park, and four schools have stadiums with surrounding tracks that can be used for track meets.

At Leo–a Catholic school that is not part of CPS–the track and field team works on technique and conditioning in the school’s weight room, hallways and stairwell landings beginning in January. Any day that weather permits, they move practice outdoors to the sidewalks or nearby woods because almost any other surface, said head coach Ed Adams, is better on the athletes’ bodies than the hallway floors that have no give.

Adams has worked at Leo 17 years. Under his leadership, the Lions have won five of their six state trophies. He has done so despite a steep decline in school enrollment that finally leveled off in the last couple years.

Today, there are 148 students at the all-boys Catholic school that in its heyday enrolled more than 1,000. Chicago News Cooperative sports columnist Dan McGrath since the summer of 2010 has served as president of the school, which continues to face enrollment and financial challenges.

Adams, who has received a combined eight coach-of-the-year plaudits from the National Federation of State High School Associations and the Illinois Track and Cross Country Coaches Association, leads a team of 30–or about 20 percent of the school’s student body.

“Track and field relies heavily on individual talent available in your school,” Adams said. “It’s not easy to build, say, a powerhouse.”

Of the six students who represented Leo at the state track meet last year, five graduated and the other is now a sophomore. That athlete, Theo Hopkins, remembers spraying his teammates with water to celebrate the state championship.

“You know how teams in the pros do that with champagne? Well, we did it with water,” said Hopkins, 15. “Then we remembered we’re supposed to always be polite so we just got on the buses quietly and came home.”

The team is in a rebuilding year in a sport where success can be fleeting. Leo’s prior state win was in 2003.

“It doesn’t matter that we don’t have tracks or anywhere but the halls to practice on,” said Hopkins. “I want people to know that at Leo we don’t need a track because we work hard and that’s why we can win.”

Imagine what these tough and focused young gents could do with a fraction of the money tossed to any public school? Facta Non Verba - Deeds not Words!

Monday, February 27, 2012

Dr. Gary Slutkin Ceasefire Founder: First Do No Harm; if You Can Get More Funding, PR, and a Movie Interrupt If You Must - The Hypocritic Oath

Inquiry. Homicide is a disease, but only in minority communities, where State dollars bandage cancer, therefore, inoculate that community with gangbanger viruses.

Why do I not get that? Probably because my education did not use John Dewey as a starting point.

Likewise, I am appalled by the complicity of WTTW, NPR and our supine media in touting the tax-payer funded boondoggle that is Ceasefire. Heck, even Stones Founder Jeff Fort's family are not happy with this symbiotic relationship - academia, media, and ambulance chasers.The Family Fort, I remember sued PBS for violating its privacy upon the death of Mrs. Fort when that shot footage of the poor woman's wake, in order to prove that Ceasefire is not waste of tax-dollars. It is, but that is not important. Ceasefire is the subject of a documentary - The Interrupters.

. Ceasefire:It was founded by an epidemiologist, Gary Slutkin, who believes that the spread of violence mimics the spread of infectious diseases, and so the treatment should be similar: go after the most infected, and stop the infection at its source. One of the cornerstones of the organization is the “Violence Interrupters” program, created by Tio Hardiman, who heads the program. The Interrupters — who have credibility on the streets because of their own personal histories — intervene in conflicts before they explode into violence.

WTTW did the PR work for the a film by the gentlemen who made the documentary " Hoop Dreams."

Ceasefire is an established tax-payer funded boon-doggle that only seems to show up, after the chalk outlines and yellow police tape and numbered sandwich cardboard markers cover the spot where 9mm shell casings had been collected. Like, yesterday afternoon near 155th & ADA. The young men were shot and one died.

Ceasefire is an academic exercise in looking the budget. It Ceasefire is merely continuation of the John Dewey fiction that human life is merely a biology lab. Gary Slutkin operates from the premise that homicide is a disease like swine flu and by injecting the thug A white administartor5 brings all of the resources necessary to build a case for funding and the data charts, evaluations, protestations and need assesment for more tax dollars and "former" gang members intervene. Ceasefire missed a spot in Morgan Park/West Pullman yesterday. Must not have seen that unresolved conflict a coming.

The program is race driven and race painted; therefore very sexy. PBS is all in with Ceasefire, as are the academics at University of Illinois, the news media, and the politicians. It is another in our race based cottage industries, like Peoples Law Office.

A writer with the Chicago Justice Project notes this -

Focusing on the existence of CeaseFire through a race lens reveals that prejudice plays a major role is why CeaseFire exists. Prejudice helps determine why a white academic institution is needed as a filter to determine who does and who does not get anti-violence funding from the state. Prejudice helps policy makers feel better about giving the money out because it is going to a White academic and not directly to some hoodlums in a community of color. Prejudice helps explain why a White academic with no background in criminology or criminal justice issues receives huge amounts of funding from the State for work in communities of color. It also explains why the media can explain away financial improprieties revealed in the audit by saying they are minor accounting errors.

Can anyone out there really tell me this would be the position of the major media in Chicago if the program were run out of neighborhood organization in Woodlawn or Auburn Gresham? The great sham! Does CeaseFire work? Well, I think I have put a few kinks in the armor of those that would claim they have social science research to verify the successfulness of this program. Why then is this program so widely acclaimed and what does that have to do with race? CeaseFire is a liberal's dream program because it pays ex-gang members to now work on the streets towards a noble goal, the reduction of violence. The problem is that there has yet to be created a way for us to determine with any validity that the program is successful in any of their efforts.

Now this being Chicago and Illinois this did not stop the program from growing handsomely. Why you ask? Because politicians who had it operating in their communities could use the program as propaganda. Politicians who received funding to have CeaseFire operating in their communities could claim success in reductions that CeaseFire would claim they made in the specific areas. See, both the politician and CeaseFire gained by these claims and the validity of the claims was not as important as the ability to claim it worked. See, it is a conspiracy, but one of like-mindedness and not of overt agreements to be dishonest. The politicians know that there is no way CeaseFire can be validated so all they need is to obtain the funding for the program in their area and they can claim victory because CeaseFire will always claim they have made reductions. CeaseFire, like any institution, could be counted on to propagandize their achievements or claimed achievements every year; thus, both the politicians and the CeaseFire would benefit from the claims of success without every having to prove if the program worked. Once a politician received funding for the program in their particular area the crime reductions were automatic; it is almost like they were purchased with the funding check.

The film The Interrupters did not make it to the Academy Awards 2012, but it picked up a loudly blared Indie Award, according to the Chicago Media.

The Interrupters are the Chicago Police Department. Academics, gang-banger thug emeriti, columnists, public radio and television are united in undermining any and all confidence in law enforcement. That is the plan.

Chicago and other big cities will eliminate Police Departments with its quasi-military chain of command, elan, and esprit de corps. Private security companies directed by policy set by the same network of academics, lawyers, journalists and politicians is the plan.

Liars figure and figures lie and chalk outlines, yellow tape and shell casing covers will be visited by Ceasefire operatives and film crews.

The filmmakers will do fine; Gary Slutkin will do fine; WTTW will do fine and remain unchallenged. The young man, woman or toddler waiting for the bus near Popeye's Chicken will never be quicker than a 9mm.

“It’s almost March and the two summits are in May,” said a top security source. “What’s up?”

“There is no way Illinois agencies outside Cook County have the manpower to help Chicago without the numbers the New York Police Department could provide,” said another source.

(emphasis my own)

THEN -Quote 'em!

Response: “We are assessing our needs as we plan, and that includes the use of in-state and out-of-state sworn personnel,” police spokesman Melissa Stratton said Saturday. “We are not limiting candidates to one state or agency. We don’t have the final footprint for the summits so we won’t be able to finalize the number of sworn personnel we will be utilizing from other agencies until closer to the event.”

Hope 'em!

◆Meanwhile: Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is this/close to President Barack Obama, was in Washington midweek to meet with Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano to discuss Chicago’s upcoming double summit and federal help.

'68 'em!

In the end, 10,000 demonstrators gathered in Chicago for the convention where they were met by 23,000 police and National Guardsmen.

2012 - Estimate range from between 12,000 and 35,000 Protestors.And then of course Old Mayor Daley was THIS Close to LBJ and trotted out the Illinois National Guard

Almost 50 activist groups met in Chicago in August to start planning "large-scale protests" during the summits. Members of Occupy Chicago, a local off-shoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement, has also applied for protest permits during the summits. Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy has stated that his department is already preparing for "mass arrests."

Be Our Guests! Do.

Hotel Challenges for the G8 Summit

It's currently estimated that attendees of the G8 and NATO summits will take up over 10,000 hotel rooms -- almost a third of Chicago's entire downtown hotel inventory. This will create a tremendous strain on travelers coming to Chicago during the summits to find vacant rooms, and if travel plans cannot be changed it is extremely important to confirm a Chicago hotel reservation as early as possible. Hotel guests should also be aware that due to security concerns movement within some of the city's hotels may be limited at certain times. Hotels are also likely to charge premium rates during this week.

Ask 'em!

Andy Thayer of CANG8 pointed out that the business group that is the host committee for the NATO/G8 summit has been given $1 million in taxpayer money to prepare for the event. The representatives of the city wouldn’t even promise the activists that they would be permitted to gather in the Loop during the week of May 15-22, when the summit occurs.

In June when the summits were announced, a group affiliated with CANG8, the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC), submitted a permit application for Daley Plaza, one of the few large venues for protest in the Loop, as Chicago’s downtown is known. Last week, MB Real Estate emailed Joe Iosbaker, Chicago spokesperson for UNAC that, “Unfortunately we are not approving any permits for the use of the plaza May 15th-22nd." (SEIU and Hamas's Joe) Iosbaker responded that, “We have the right to march against NATO’s wars, such as Afghanistan and Libya, and against the G8 agenda of imposing poverty on working people from Greece to Chicago.”

Has Andy's Gang booked rooms yet?

Motorcade 'em!

Outside of Ruths Mini Club on Halsted I heard a drunk guy who commutes to and from the Loop at least three times a day on various CTA conveyances say that there will be "Bah-tween Fordee and Fidy Motahcades aDay, Mother#$%^er!" This same man predicted a warm winter and that we would dodge the blizzard predicted last Friday.

Everyday we can expect motorcades to and from McCormick Place. Let's say the Canadian delegates want to stay in Hyde Park, The Germans in Park Ridge, The Ruskies in Braidwood, The Japanese in Hammond near the Horseshoe, The assorted EU bankrupts in Posen and Hegewisch and the Oak Lawn Hilton & the balance at the cool places in the Loop. How's that gonna fly?

When over 2,000 foreign dignitaries converge on one city, it's no surprise that security levels in Chicago will be extremely high during the summit. The United States Secret Service will work with the Chicago Police Department to provide security during the event, which will include escorted motorcades. Transportation to and from Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports will result in numerous rolling street closures -- as many as 50 per day. Chicago public transportation will be the best way to avoid the major traffic snarls this will cause.

Then we have the - "God Bless Them!" - Occupy Kids all rested from the mild winter and vacations on Padre Island and back home in Naperville linking up with Andy's Gang.

Sneedless to say -This will be like watching a score of monkeys get tossed a football.Then - NATO arrives. So, far the only explanation of the up-side to this Cluster-Flux was these nuggets panned from Laura Washington's fine column a few weeks ago -

A big upside is the chance to rehabilitate our image in foreign eyes, said Richard Longworth, a longtime foreign correspondent and now a senior fellow at the Council. Chicago “is still pretty much unknown in the world,” he said. “It’s still ‘bang, bang, Al Capone.’ ”

The old Big Shoulders Chicago of industrial might is gone, added Longworth, who has written extensively on globalization. “If we are going to play in this global league, there are lots of things that we must do to target our investments and resources.”

Chicago offers “amazing talent” steeped in global affairs, added Rachel Bronson, a Council vice president. Until now, “there has been no place to talk about global policy issues and how what’s going on out there is driven from here, and how it affects here. And I think we have a lot to say about it.”

Chicago will get to shed its Al Capone image? I thought Daley did that already; you know Paris on the Lake; City Sans Rubes with Big Shoulders and No Popery Here!.

Is it just me or do you folks think there is gonna be a real tooth loosener at the old Global Crossroads. Followed of course by a series of Peoples Lawsuites,naturalmente!

Trimming morality to how we behave guts the Gospel call to conversion of life and rejection of sin. Francis Cardinal George

The Trimmer*s have been around for a very long time. Having taught John Dryden's closed couplet satire Absalom and Achitophel required a great deal of providing historical context to the great work. During the late Stuart Period of British History, Roman Catholics in England, Scotland and Ireland suffered great persecution at the hands of well-educated and rhetorically gifted bigots. Not until October, 2011, did Great Britain lift the ban on an heir marrying a Catholic; prior to this we had "Succession is also governed by the Act of Union 1800, which restates the provisions of the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Bill of Rights 1689. These laws restrict the succession to legitimate descendants of Sophia, Electress of Hanover and disbar those who are Roman Catholics or who have married Roman Catholics."

It is a Progressive thing, you see, Trimming! What?

Trimmer - a (1) : one that trims articles (2) : one that stows coal or freight on a ship so as to distribute the weight properly b : an instrument or machine with which trimming is done c : a circuit element (as a capacitor) used to tune a circuit to a desired frequency 2: a beam that receives the end of a header in floor framing 3: a person who modifies a policy, position, or opinion especially out of expediency

A trimmer- One who wants things done HIS way without question, compromise or consideration . . . like President Obama

Long before President Barack Obama followed the dictates of his base and presented HHS Coercion of Catholics and other Christians to violate their beliefs, another Trimmer, a bigot, forced Parliament with his soaring rhetoric to exclude Catholics from marriage to the Royal Family.

In 1674 he brought forward a motion for disarming "popish recusants," and supported one by Lord Carlisle for restricting the marriages in the royal family to Protestants; but he opposed the bill introduced by Lord Danby in 1675, that imposed a test oath on officials and members of parliament, speaking "with that quickness, learning and elegance that are inseparable from all his discourses," and ridiculing the multiplication of oaths, since "no man would ever sleep with open doors. . . should all the town be sworn not to rob." He was now on bad terms with Danby, and a witty sally at that minister’s expense caused his dismissal from the council in January 1676. In 1678 he took an active part in the investigation of the "Popish Plot," to which he appears to have given excessive credence, but opposed the bill that was passed on 30 October 1678, to exclude Roman Catholics from the House of Lords. . . . He readily accepted for himself the character of a "trimmer," desiring, he said, to keep the boat steady, while others attempted to weigh it down perilously on one side or the other; and he concluded his tract with these assertions: that our climate is a Trimmer between that part of the world where men are roasted and the other where they are frozen; that our Church is a Trimmer between the frenzy of fanatic visions and the lethargic ignorance of Popish dreams; that our laws are Trimmers between the excesses of unbounded power and the extravagance of liberty not enough restrained; that true virtue hath ever been thought a Trimmer, and to have its dwelling in the middle between two extremes; that even God Almighty Himself is divided between His two great attributes, His Mercy and His Justice. In such company, our Trimmer is not ashamed of his name. . . . ( Emphasis my own) He was Lord Halifax author of The Character of a Trimmer Concerning Religion, Laws and Liberties ,by a person of honour: George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, 1633-1695.

Lord Halifax was witty, loud, deceptively avuncular, rhetorically skilled and a devout bigot - George Saville would be a regular a on MSNBC today. MSNBC lards up its nonsense with Brits.

Francis Cardinal George has taken on the Trimmer Dragon of Secular Obstinacy - the Obama Regime.

In this week's New World Lenten Message, Cardinal George lances the Obama political Trimmer Dragon with the facts, context and the historical impact of Obama Regime's assault on Religious Liberty.

Since 1915, the Catholic bishops of the United States have taught that basic health care should be accessible to all in a just society. Two years ago, we asked that whatever instruments were crafted to care for all, the Hyde and Weldon and Church amendments restricting funding for abortion and respecting institutional conscience continue to be incorporated into law. They were excluded. As well, the present health care reform act doesn’t cover entire sections of the U.S. population. It is not universal.

The provision of health care should not demand “giving up” religious liberty. Liberty of religion is more than freedom of worship. Freedom of worship was guaranteed in the Constitution of the former Soviet Union. You could go to church, if you could find one. The church, however, could do nothing except conduct religious rites in places of worship-no schools, religious publications, health care institutions, organized charity, ministry for justice and the works of mercy that flow naturally from a living faith. All of these were co-opted by the government. We fought a long cold war to defeat that vision of society.

The strangest accusation in this manipulated public discussion has the bishops not respecting the separation between church and state. The bishops would love to have the separation between church and state we thought we enjoyed just a few months ago, when we were free to run Catholic institutions in conformity with the demands of the Catholic faith, when the government couldn’t tell us which of our ministries are Catholic and which not, when the law protected rather than crushed conscience. The state is making itself into a church. The bishops didn’t begin this dismaying conflict nor choose its timing. We would love to have it ended as quickly as possible. It’s up to the government to stop the attack.

If you haven’t already purchased the Archdiocesan Directory for 2012, I would suggest you get one as a souvenir. On page L-3, there is a complete list of Catholic hospitals and health care institutions in Cook and Lake counties. Each entry represents much sacrifice on the part of medical personnel, administrators and religious sponsors. Each name signifies the love of Christ to people of all classes and races and religions. Two Lents from now, unless something changes, that page will be blank.

(emphasis my own)

Sadly, Cardinal George, that is the idea. The Trimmer Dragon will and has come at people of Faith not only from Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor ( St. Xavier University most recently) and the Military -ordering military chaplains not to read the letter from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemning the Choice Mandate.

The regime tells us that 99% of Catholics ignore their faith. Let's see in November.

Prayer to Saint George

Almighty God, who gave to your servant George boldness to Confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Cook County Morgue, or Green Alternative Energy Source for Toni?I hear so many gushing Gwens, generally Progressives, say that Toni Preckwinkle will replace Rahm Emanuel as Mayor of Chicago. Would not surprise me in the least. Toni is every bit as smart as Arne Duncan, Mike Quigley, Forrest Claypool and Desiree Rogers.

Cook County Board President Toni has her hands full, at the moment, firing a couple of poor mopes because her morgue is stuffed with stiffs. Stacked like cord wood them cadavers be! Somebody else's troubles! Toni's opportunity!

Toni, who in my understanding of her intellectual depth and breadth, never popped out an original thought in her life, reads from the same play card as President Obama and all of the Hyde Park Mafia - educated, or influenced by, Chicago Lab School and University of Chicago. Toni once read a daffy New York Times piece that slammed Chicago Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow and repeated that single meme ( Bellow is a toxic Racist) chapter and verse to oppose Chicago honoring a home grown artist. It is obvious Toni has never read Bellow. Thus, like our science President Barack Algae Obama, Toni will take a page out of eugenics happy Great Britain's Conservative Party -Sir George Samuel Knatchbull Young, 6th Baronet. You see in the Nation that Stood Alone Against Hitler - Mr. Eugenics Himself -the same dipstick soulless mopes control the media and the message.

The Message from Old Blighty is burn corpses and heat swimming pools!

Sir George Young, leader of the House of Commons, said the proposal to warm a Worcestershire leisure centre with heat from a nearby crematorium was a “groundbreaking scheme”.

He said the Government is considering whether the plan could be duplicated elsewhere in Britain.

“The Government is aware of this particular scheme,” he said. “The Department for Energy and Climate Change will shortly be publishing its heat strategy and this will explore the potential for better recovery and reuse of wasted heat in schemes such as this one.”

He added that he would “die a happier man” if he knew heat from his cremation was warming the waters of a local pool.

Now, here is payoff!

Redditch Borough Council will be the first authority in the country to use a crematorium to heat a swimming pool. Work has already begun on the project, which is expected to be completed this spring. Since the plans were approved in February last year, they have won an award from the Green Organisation.

Oh, Good Show! The move is positively Green Happy! Soylent Green! I'll bet there is not an Imam from Soho down to Brighton who would not love to see this Retro-scheme get all fired up.

Burn stiffs and find a great new source of energy free of our enslavement to fossil fuels! Stiffs are too fresh to be fossils. As President Algae says, "nothing but drilling is off the table!"

Toni! The Tables at morgue are filled! Don't be Fuelish! These stiffs are not yet fossil fuels. Be like Brits; cook cadavers and heat a few pools.

Toni? Toni Preckwinkle! I have set my digital stop watch! Go! I can hear Sneed Now!

Get all those stiffs out of the morgue! Burn 'em! Cook 'em! Convert 'em>! Light 'em up to Light up of Lives, Toni!

Money, Marbles or Chalk, Chicago! I am no longer a betting man, but were I yet a practicising degenerate gambler, I'd a bet a house payment that, in no time at all, Carol Marin, WTTW, NPR and our Room Temperature IQ Editorial Boards will Huzzah Toni's plan to Torch the Stiffs and pave the way for more abortions with help of Boss Cosgrove of Personal PAC. This will be necessary to add as much kindling to the Energy Green Savings dead kids and with the help of SEIU as well, to shift Energy Friendly and Women's Health legislation for Pat Quinn to sign and make Kingsford of old Mrs. Wiesniewski, Mr. Antonelli, and other Blue Hairs in Skilled Care Facilities across Illinois as well as the nameless babies!

That is how smart Toni Preckwinkle is folks.

God ain't making any more land, but we got mortality going for Clean Energy!

Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle will really Cook County and Light Up Our Lives!

"There is far more danger in a public monopoly than there is in a private monopoly, for when government goes into business it can always shift its losses to the taxpayer. The Government never really goes into business, for it never makes ends meet, and that is the first requisite of business. It just mixes a little business with a lot of politics, and no one ever gets a chance to find out what is actually going on." Thomas A. Edison* - The Wizard of Menlo Park and the guy who invented General Electric. Did not win Nobel Prize, but Edison was awarded 1,368 separate and distinct patents during his lifetime. He passed away at age 84 on October 18th, 1931 - on the anniversary date of his invention of the incandescent bulb -without Federal Funding.

Then there is our Mr. Science President!

"We’re (Obama Regime)** making new investments in the development of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel that’s actually made from a plant-like substance, algae -- you've got a bunch of algae out here," Obama said at the University of Miami today. "If we can figure out how to make energy out of that, we'll be doing alright. Believe it or not, we could replace up to 17 percent of the oil we import for transportation with this fuel that we can grow right here in America." President Barack H. Obama who has yet to publicly display his academic records and was himself invented by General Electric.

Algae, grown right, by God, here in America!

Imagine all of the pond scum that went to waste before this Nobel Prize laureate was given some copy to read. Imagine all of the pond scum laying around the White House! Eureka and Bonanza!

*1847 Born on February 11th at Milan, Ohio. 1854 Moved to Port Huron, Mich.

1857 Set up a chemical laboratory in the cellar of his home.

1859 Became a newsboy and "candy butcher" on the trains of the Grand Trunk Railway, running between Port Huron and Detroit.

1862 Printed and published "The Weekly Herald," the first newspaper ever to be typeset and printed on a moving train. The London Times features a story on him and his paper, giving him his first exposure to international notoriety.

1862 Saved - from otherwise certain death in a train accident - the young son of J. U. Mackenzie, station agent at Mount Clemens, Mich. In gratitude, the child's father taught him telegraphy.

1862 Strung a telegraph line from the Port Huron railway station to Port Huron village and worked in the local telegraph office.

1863 Obtained his first position as a regular telegraph operator on the Grand Trunk Railway at Stratford Junction, Canada. Later, is resigned by them to help develop a duplex system of telegraphy

1863-1868 Spent nearly five years as a telegraph "tramp operator" in various cities of the Central Western states, always experimenting with ways to improve the apparatus.

1868 Entered the office of Western Union in Boston as a telegraph operator. Becomes friendly with other early electricians - especially a later associate of Alexander Graham Bell named Benjamin Franklin Bredding - who was much more knowledgeable than both himself and Bell on the state-of-the-art of telegraphy and electricity. Entered the private telegraph line business on a very modest scale. Resigned from Western Union - was about to be fired anyway - in order to conduct further experimentation on multiplexing telegraph signals.

1868 Came up with his first patented invention, an Electrical Vote Recorder. Application for this patent was signed 0n October 11, 1968. Because the invention was way ahead of its time, it was heartily denigrated by politicians... He now becomes much more oriented towards making certain there is a strong public demand and associated market for anything he tries to invent.

1869 Landed in New York City by way of a Boston steamship, poor, penniless, and in debt. While seeking work, chanced being in the operating room of the Gold & Stock Telegraph Company when their ticker apparatus broke down. No one but he was able to fix it, As a result, he was given a job as superintendent at the remarkable wage of $300 per month.

1869 Went into partnership with Franklin L. Pope as an electrical engineer. Radically improved stock tickers and patented several associated inventions, among which were the Universal Stock Ticker and the Unison Device.

1870 Received the first cash payment for one of his inventions, a $40,000 check. Sent money back to his financially desperate parents. Opened a manufacturing shop in Newark, where he made stock tickers and worked on developing the quadruplex telegraph.

1871 Assisted Sholes, the inventor of the typewriter, in making the first successful working model of that device.

1872-1876 Worked on and patented several of his most important inventions, including the motograph and automatic telegraph systems such as the quadruplex, sextuplex and multiplex telegraph which saved Western Union many millions of dollars in wiring. Also invented paraffin paper (which was first used for wrapping candies), the electric pen, the forerunner of the present day mimeograph machine, the carbon rheostat, the microtasimeter, etc.

1876-1877 Invented the carbon telephone transmitter "button", which finally made telephony a commercial success. Significantly, this invention not only led to the development of the microphone, which made early radio possible, but the solid state "diode" or transistor which makes so many of today's electronic devices possible. Invented the phonograph. (The patent on which was later issued by the United States Patent Office - within two months after its application - without a single reference.)

1878 Continued to improve the phonograph. Later in the year, went with an astronomical party to Rawlins, Wyoming for rest and to test his new microtasimeter during an eclipse of the sun. Associates key him in to the world-wide need for a workable incandescent light bulb. Upon returning, he began to investigate the "electric light problem in earnest."

1878 Became the first to apply the term "filament" to a fine wire that glows when carrying an electric current. In a prophetic article in the North American Review he foreshadowed ten prominent uses for the phonograph - all since accomplished - including its combination with the telephone, which became a reality in 1914 with the perfection of the Telescribe.

1879 Invented the first commercially practical incandescent electric lamp. The lamp itself was perfected on October 21st, 1879, on which day there was put into circuit the first bulb embodying the principles known as the "Edison modern incandescent lamp." This bulb maintained its incandescence for over 40 hours.

1879 Made radical improvements on the construction of dynamos, including the mica laminated armature and mica insulated commutator. Also constructed the first practical generators for the systems of distribution of current for lighting. Invented and improved upon numerous systems of generation, distribution, regulation and, measurement of electric current and voltage. Invented sockets, switches, insulating tape, etc. (Meanwhile, he also invented gummed paper tape now commonly used in place of twine or string for securing packages.)

1879 Constructed the first electric motor ever made for a 110 to 120 volt line at Menlo Park, N. J. This device is still in existence and operative, and is located in the Edison Historical Collection in New Jersey. On December 31, gave the first public demonstration of an electric lighting system in streets and buildings at Menlo Park, N. J., utilizing underground mains.

1880 Invented further improvements in systems and details for electric lighting and laid the first groundwork for introducing them on a commercial basis. Established the first incandescent lamp factory at Menlo Park, N. J.

1881 Opened business offices at No. 65 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Established his second and improved commercial incandescent lamp factory at Harrison, N. J. Also organized and established shops at 104 Goerck St., 108 Wooster St., and 65 Washington St. in New York City, for the manufacture of dynamos, underground conductors, sockets, switches, fixtures, meters, etc.

1882 On September 4th, he commenced operation of the first profit oriented central station in the United States in New York City, for the distribution of current for electric lighting.

1882-1883 Designed and contracted for the first three-wire central station for distributing electric light, power, and heat - in standardized form - in Brockton, Massachusetts. By October, had completed construction of that station. Discovered a previously unknown phenomenon that later came to be known as the "Edison effect," but he called "Etheric Force." Specifically, determined that an independent wire, grid, or plate placed between the legs of the filament of an incandescent lamp acted as a "damper" or valve to control the flow of current. The associated Patent No. 307,031 was issued to him later that year. Twelve years later these previously unknown phenomena were recognized as electric waves in free space and became the foundation of wireless telegraphy. Most significantly, this discovery - along with his carbon button - involved the foundation principles upon which the diode was later invented, and upon which radio, television, and computer transistors are based. Moved from Newark to a new laboratory at Menlo Park...

1883 Constructed the first, relatively crude, three-wire central system for electric lighting in a simple wooden structure in Sunbury, Pa.

1880-1887 Underwent his most strenuous years of invention as he extended and improved greatly upon his electric light, heat, and power systems. Took out over three hundred patents, many of which were of extraordinary and fundamental importance. The most were those relating to "dividing" electric power and standardizing the three-wire system and improving its associated generation and feeder system.

1881 - 1887 Invented a system of wireless telegraphy, (by induction) to and from trains in motion, or between moving trains and railway stations. The system was installed on the Lehigh Valleys R. R. in 1887, and was used there for several years. Invented a wireless system of communication between ships at sea, ships and shore and ships and distant points on land. Patent No. 465,971 was issued on this invention, the application having been filed May 23, 1885 - two years prior to the publication of the work of Hertz. Most significantly, this patent was eventually purchased from Edison by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company.

1887 Moved his center of experimentation to the laboratory at West Orange, New Jersey.

1887-1890 Made major improvements on the brown wax and black wax cylinder phonograph. Obtained over eighty related patents, while establishing a very extensive commercial business in the manufacture and sale of phonographs and records, including associated dictating machines, "shaveable" records, and shaving machines.

1891 Made a number of inventions associated with improving electric railways.

1891 Invented and patented the motion picture camera. This mechanism, with its continuous tape-like film, made it possible to take, reproduce, and project motion pictures as we see and hear them today.

1891-1900 Developed his great iron ore enterprise, in which he did some of his most brilliant engineering work. One of his most important inventions of this period was a giant roller machine for breaking large masses of rock and finely crushing them. Invented the Fluoroscope...realizing the necessity and value of a practical fluorescent screen for making examinations with X-rays, he made thousands of crystallizations of single and double chemical salts and finally discovered that crystals of Calcium Tungstate made in a particular way were highly fluorescent to the X-ray. Also made many several improvements on the X-ray tube.

1900 - 1910 Invented and perfected the steel alkaline storage battery and made it a commercial success.

1900 -1909 Established his once famous Portland Cement Co. and made many important inventions relating to the processes involved in the production of pre-cast buildings. In 1907, he introduced the first concrete mold for making one-piece houses called "single piece cast concrete homes." The unique type of kiln he developed for making these houses proved to be of great importance in the cement industry.

1902-1903 Worked on improving the Edison Primary Battery. Continued to invent improvements to his phonograph - his favorite invention - and associated cylinders.

1905 Introduced a revolutionary new type of dictating machine, which enabled the dictator to hear repetitions and make paper scale corrections.

1907 Introduced the Universal Electric Motor which made it possible to operate dictating machines etc. on all lighting circuits.

1910-1914 Worked on - and much improved - the disc phonograph, resulting in the production of records and playing instruments which reproduce vocal and instrumental music with overtones that had relatively "extraordinary fidelity and sweetness." Introduced the diamond point reproducer and the "indestructible" record, thereby commencing a new era in phonographs.

1912 Having spent many previous years in its general development and perfection, finally introduced the Kinetophone or talking motion picture.

1913 Introduced an important automatic correction device for the dictating machine.

1914 Being the largest individual user in the United States of carbolic acid (for making phonograph records), he found himself at the onset of World War One in danger of being compelled to close his factory by reason of a related embargo placed on exporting said substance by England and Germany. The basic issue was that carbolic acid was in great demand for the purpose of making explosives. He now devised an alternative method for making carbolic acid synthetically, and finally put crews of men to work twenty four hours a day to build a related plant. By the eighteenth day, was producing carbolic acid, and within four weeks was turning out a ton of it per day.

1914 On the night of December 9th his great plant at West Orange, N. J. was the scene of a spectacular fire. As soon as he saw the scope of this conflagration he enthusiastically sent word to several friends and members of his family, advising them to "Get down here quick.... you may never have another chance to see anything like this again!" Within hours after the fire had been extinguished, he had given orders for the complete rehabilitation of the plant. Early the next morning he arrived with a gang of men and began to supervise the task of clearing the debris. Hundreds more workers were added throughout the day, and the project continued around the clock for several months until an even larger and more efficient facility than the original had been completed.

1914 Invented the Telescribe, combining the telephone and the dictating phonograph, thus permitting - for the first time - the recording of both sides of a telephone conversation.

1915 Because military conflicts in Europe had created an enormous demand for phenols, and supplies were uncertain, he invented the first synthetic form of carbolic acid (C6H6O). Next, after evaluating all of the literature available on the erection and operation of benzol (C6H6) absorbing plants, he drew up plans forbenzine-making facility that could be readily installed. Although it had previously taken nine months to a year to install such a facility, his first such structure was put into operation in just forty five days. A larger plant designed for the Woodward Iron Company at Woodward, Ala., was completed in only 60 days. At about this time, he also built two other large benzol plants in Canada, each of were was put into operation in less than sixty days. All these plants became highly successful commercial operations, producing benzol, toluol, solvent naphtha, xylol, and naphthalene.

1915 In the early months of this year, he conceived the idea of helping out the struggling textile and rubber industries of America by making myrbane, aniline oil, and aniline salt, which, are still important commercial substances, and which had been previously imported from Germany. Following his usual procedure, he first exhausted the literature on the subject, and then laid out the plant. By bringing great pressure to bear on his workers - and by working day and night himself - he constructed the plant in just forty five working days, commenced deliveries in June, and was soon turning out over 4,000 pounds of these products per day.

1915 During World War One, the dyeing industry was suffering from a great scarcity of paraphenylenediamine, formerly imported from Germany. Since he was using the chemical in the manufacture of records for his Diamond Disc Phonograph and was no longer able to procure it, he experimented until he found a way to synthesize it. Much pressure was now brought to bear upon him to supply some of it to fur dyers and others. He equipped a separate plant for this purpose and ultimately manufactured over a ton a day.

1915 The great scarcity of carbolic acid in America now brought innumerable requests to him to sell some of this product. His first such plant worked well, producing about 7,000 pounds a day. This, however, soon proved to be insufficient to supply the demand. He now projected and installed another plant with a capacity of about 7,000 pounds additional per day. As he devised improved processes for use in the latter plant there were a vast number of difficult problems to overcome. However, with his usual energy and dogged perseverance - involving many weeks of strenuous work - he finally prevailed.

1916 Worked several months making important improvements in the manufacture of disc phonograph records and new methods and devices for recording. Worked on improved methods and processes producing his chemical products. Worked out processes for making a paramidaphenol base, hydrochloride benzidine base, and sulphate and constructed new plants for their manufacture. As President of the Naval Consulting Board, he did a great deal of work connected with national defense.

1917-1918 Worked on special experiments relating to defense for the United States Government. See below.

I Locating positions of guns by sound ranging.

2 Detecting submarines by sound from moving vessels.

3 Detecting, on moving vessels, the discharge of torpedoes by submarines.

Unless the GOP continues its time-honorted proclivity to blow off the old toes you just may be right and manage to dodge a loss next November.

If your opponents were serious about getting more votes than President Obama they should loop these videos of pre-school children doing a Kim Il Song to President Obama and flash all of this White House regimes works: war on religious liberty, political use of Justice Departments, Health and Uman Services, Dept. of Education, the Military, the golf outings the parties, the vacations, the NY city Fly-over of Air Force One & etc.

These videos say it all.

Mm, mmm, mm!Barack Hussein Obama

He said that all must lend a handTo make this country strong againMmm, mmm, mm!Barack Hussein Obama

He said we must be fair todayEqual work means equal payMmm, mmm, mm!Barack Hussein Obama

He said that we must take a standTo make sure everyone gets a chanceMmm, mmm, mm!Barack Hussein Obama

He said red, yellow, black or whiteAll are equal in his sightMmm, mmm, mm!Barack Hussein Obama

Yes!Mmm, mmm, mmBarack Hussein Obama

Song 2:Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say “hooray!”

Hooray, Mr. President! You’re number one!The first black American to lead this great nation!

Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plansTo make this country’s economy number one again!

Hooray Mr. President, we’re really proud of you!And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!

So continue —- Mr. President we know you’ll do the trickSo here’s a hearty hip-hooray —-

Hip, hip hooray!Hip, hip hooray!Hip, hip hooray!

This was filmed at the B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, NJ and uploaded on June 19, 2009.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Welcome to Soundstage - Live from WTTW and broadcast LIVE over NPR - This is Soundstage - Tonight Ramblin' Pat Quinn and Sheila "G-String" Simon! Brought to you by a grant from Personal PAC and SEIU - when babies need killin' and Purple Ts need fillin'!

Chords G/C/D tuning and frailing and futzing about - Ramplin Pat and Sheila G!!!!!!!!!!( the fans is screamin'!)

Q- Hello Ilini!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m here today to tell you the truth!This budget contains truths that may not be what you want to hear! ( C-Tuning Sheila? Well, Alright Then!)

But these are truths that you do need to know! ( Capo up to G two past me, there)And I believe you can handle the truth. ( G! Sheila, this should not be your first polka - there it is!) Lt. Governor Sheila Simon, Everybody! Let's get to it! (hard strumming and picking)

WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ( Chorus) Good mornin', captain; Good mornin', son; Good mornin', captain; Good morning' son; Do you need another child-skinner out on your new road line?

Now, down to business

Truth is these past 35 years/ Too many governors Too Many Beers/Members of the 'ssembly have clung to budget Hopes (Well,fantasies, Thar Pat) "stead a'confrontin' our pensions on the Ropes!

(Chorus)Good mornin', captain; Good mornin', son; Good mornin', captain; Good morning' son; Do you need another kid -skinner out on your new road line?

” Old Quinn said. “I'm proposin' a budget that includes spendin' cuts/ Reductions 'n reforms to restore fiscal Struts!Stability to our state,buildin' and a growin' economic Kale/ Ypu can travel down to Dwight/ On my new high speed rail.”

( Chorus) Good mornin', captain; Good mornin', son; Good mornin', captain; Good morning' son; Do you need another brat-skinner out on your new road line?

Since I’ve been Governor, we already nixed the doubters/ by working all together to enact reforms, Ye Pouters.Like no-nonsense ethics standards Like reforming the workers’ comp/Unemployment insurance systems/ Let's Do the Pat Quinn Stomp!

( Chorus) Good mornin', captain; Good mornin', son; Good mornin', captain; Good morning' son; Do you need another breed-stopper out on your new road line?

In WWII The sailors said: “We Stick—We Win!? Terry Cosgrove says that every day Hear what I'm Sayin Jim?Yanks kno 'stick together'and 'work for the common good?'/ It's Land o'Lincoln Rube, We do the stickin in!

The sailors had a motto: “We Stick—We Win!”Americans know when we stick together and work for the common good, we all come out ahead. We all win.Loyalty to the common good is far more important in Illinois today than loyalty to your caucus or loyalty to your lobbyist

There’s demand for more luxury housing in Mumbai, India, and the architecture firm of James Law is pitching its design for a huge residential complex. Among its features are small pools off the balconies that seem to hang in mid-air.The beautiful Aquaria Grande residential towers, currently undergoing construction, will be equipped with one of the most stunning architectural feats when the project is completed, transforming standard balconies into swimming pools.

The residential location consists of two 37 story towers located in Mumbai, India. The Aquaria Grande Tower was designed by Wadhwa Group, and will feature several different amenities including a car park, fully equipped clubhouse, and a sustainable podium garden.

Let's see. You walk out on the balcony and take a dip. You are on the top floor and the 36 floors under you are residents.

Wrap this around your tiny brain, there, Hickey. Okay. Glass pools. In the photo the residents look like swimsuit models.

Picture this for apartments along 111th between the Metra east and Kmart to west, or down Pulaski from 111th to let's 103rd."Hello (frosty and abrupt) . . .Mrs. Nelligan. This is Mrs Tansey from cross the street. First it was your Bill and now all of your kids and their friends? Every morning? You people don't seem to understand what exactly a balcony is for . . . I am minding my own business! You should mind you. . . (click)."

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The clown opera that is the national media trots out a video of a speech given by Rick Santorum in 2008 at Ave Maria University in Florida. Okay.

Ave Maria University is a Catholic University funded and founded by Tom Monahan, a devout Catholic millionaire who like many Catholics was troubled by schools of high education and universities traditionally identified as Roman Catholic morphing into University of Chicago.

I still can not get my head around Notre Dame's conferring an Honorary Degree upon Planned Parenthood's only President. Likewise Jesuit Georgetown's spineless removal of religious iconography in compliance with the most secular White House since Woodrow Wilson. It was not my call, to be sure, but I don't need to like it.

Tom Monahan's Ave Maria University is the real deal. In a few years, Ave Maria will give the PR and PC driven school in South Bend, Indiana a sound drubbing on the grid-iron.

Sen. Santorum was in the wilderness in 2008. He was out of the Senate, but in-demand as an intelligent voice of orthdox Christian principles. Sen. Santorum is now the front-runner for the GOP and Media target for duration.

Maureen Dowd is a clever but silly woman with a perch at the New York Times. Raised a Catholic, but evolved a Feminist Progressive. Maureen Dowd has pushed to front of the crowd of Pharisees taking shots at Santorum's very sound Satan analogies and historical consequences of secularism. In fact Santiorum sounds like GK Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and CS Lewis much more than Dowd's Savanorola - Dominican Preacher in 15th Century Florence who condemned the Borgia and the Medici 1%-ers who controlled banking and the Papacy. Savanorola was torched by the media of his day -literally and figuratively.

Rick Santorum has been called a latter-day Savonarola.

That’s far too grand. He’s more like a small-town mullah.

“Satan has his sights on the United States of America,” the conservative presidential candidate warned in 2008. “Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition.”

Mo don't like the Satan bit. Shoot, Satan even a had a part in Jesus Christ Superstar, as well as those "big-nosed garlic eaters" that Rev, Jeremiah Wright hated, Mo.

Feminists and Progressives hold that belief in sin is a sign of the 'unevolved.'

To be evolved one must accept every manifestation of sexual procilivity as a'Oh, So Human and the Way One was Born.' Mo goes on -

Santorum, who is considered “too Catholic” even by my über-Catholic brothers, clearly believes that America’s soul wounds include men and women having sex for reasons other than procreation, people involved in same-sex relationships, women using contraception or having prenatal testing, environmentalists who elevate “the Earth above man,” women working outside the home, “anachronistic” public schools, Mormonism (which he said is considered “a dangerous cult” by some Christians), and President Obama (whom he obliquely and oddly compared to Hitler and accused of having “some phony theology”).

Well, yeah. That might be what one might believe Maureen might one not? Jesus of Nazareth, not the Godspell Clown Jesus, said to the woman 'caught' in adultery - " I shall not condemn you, but, go and sin no more." BUT! For Dewey/Hegalian hair-splitting 'Yeah, But-ters' that is a tough conclusive clause.

The Pharisees were the Biblical Progressives, the puritans. They constantly harped at Jesus of Nazareth with Yeah But-ing. Pharisees believed in ORAL LAW - you, know, the crowd that holds with adjunct professor Obama that the Constitution is a LIVING document. No matter what is written or held as true, Pharisees (past and present) caper nimbly over any truth, just like the Father of Lies - Old Nick, Scratch, Satan.

Satan comes from the Jewish word meaning to turn away, or "to evolve."

These are folks who generally purchase beers like Keystone Light in the handy Hold My Stones Cool Pack, and top-off the tank of 1991 Ford Taurus hatchback at Thornton's, Safeway, Speedway, Food For Less and Singh's Gas and Go.

The bonus cold can crowd are most anxious to hear from President Obama why he deigned to eschew the bounty of Canada's natural gas and petro pipeline - Keystone.

Keystone should be the rally cry for Americans.

Religious liberty assaults from the Obama regime, notwithstanding, the cavalier cave-in to radical soul-patched Redfern Greens and tree-huggers; thus, making the pump prices equal to a pint of vanity beer at a chic Micro-Craft Beer salon is a huge assault on all Americans - except the 1% ers who fill Obama 2012 Campaign PACs and coffers.

If one were serious about regime change, and I most certainly happen to be thus inclined, Keystone would be the touchstone and the national beer summit.

Let Keystone return America to greatness! Hold My Stones for four more years . . .?Oh, I think not, President Obama!

Skinny suggests and this dude abides. Read it, Mr. Skinny. Thought about what I had read, too. Here it is.

What will I give up for Lent? Whatever it will be by the end of today, Ash Wednesday, will be as nothing compared to what Dolores Hart gave up decades ago.

Dolores Hart was a movie star who played in films with Anthony Quinn and Elvis. Dolores Hart is now Mother Prioress Dolores of Regina Laudis Abbey in in New England. She is a contemplative Roman Catholic nun.

Let's see, Hollywood, Stardom, Riches given up for a life of prayer,silence, contemplation and service.

Dolores Hart set the bar pretty high. I will no doubt give up something like oatmeal cookies from the Leo Cafeteria, third helpings of pierogi, or blaspheming every time I see that CTA photo of Forrest Claypool looking for the L in the wrong direction.

Mother Dolores, as she is now known, is the subject this year of an Oscar-nominated documentary short, "God Is the Bigger Elvis," which airs April 5 on HBO. The documentary chronicles her life as a nun after a Hollywood career that saw her costar with Elvis Presley ("Loving You" in 1957 and "King Creole" in 1958), Anthony Quinn ("Wild Is the Wind," 1957) and George Hamilton ("Where the Boys Are," 1960). Her favorite is "Lisa," from 1962, in which she played a Jewish refugee after World War II. Before the documentary, she last appeared on the big screen in 1963's "Come Fly With Me," a comedy about flight attendants looking for love.

Not only does "God Is the Bigger Elvis" explore Mother Dolores' life in Hollywood and at the monastery, but it also chronicles the day-to-day life of the nuns at the abbey, which is also a working farm. Like Mother Dolores, a lot of the nuns had previous occupations, including the law and science, before they changed vocations.

Imagine MSNBC's Chris Matthews -Trappist Monk. "HA!!!."

Better yet, Pat Hickey IVI-IPO Goo-goo. Now, that would be one Hell of a Cross to bear anywhere. . . . and I don't have a hair-shirt.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Chicago is Rahm Emanuel's foot-stool that he will use to step up to the White House. If we all just listen very carefully skippingover the no longer bubbly waters of Bubbly Creek you can almost hear Mayor Rahm chirping these words:

"I can not wait to get the #$%^ out of this Hick Burg. For #$%^'s sake he had to keep is #$%^ing mouth shut ever since Bert Odelson dragged his #$%^-ing a$$ in front of Sister Queen and Joe Morris.

Why I am just Chickled Titless about the billion and change the twin riot venues will cost this city. Rahm is out of here in three. It will be easier if President Teleprompter Jarrett . . .I mean Obama, wins. Good luck with that. Rahm is going to the White House. It's a done deal. After the riots and lawsuits from anarchists, we get a billion dollar bill and Euro trash agree to say Chicago is No Longer the Al Capone City. Rahm runs for President. Everything is staked out.

Here is how I see Rahm pounding the stakes:

1. Toni Preckwinkle will be Mayor

2. Dart can stay at Sheriff

3. Quigley gets the County Board and Forrest Claypool's next appointment

4. Lisa Madigan or Tom Tunney can fight it out of Governor unless Quinn gets himself impeached

5. Sheila Simon stays as LT. Guv

6. Danny Hynes gets Treasury

7. Jan Schakowsky gets Kirk's Senate Seat

8. Joe Moore gets Durbin's - trhey are identical

9. Quinn, if he manages to stay out of jail, goes to the BGA with Andy Shaw, or Team Teaching at UICC with Progressive éminence chauve Thundering Dick Simpson

10. Obama builds his library in Hawaii

11. Chicago gets fully absorbed into Hyde Park and becomes a suburb of the University of Chicago. . . .FINALLY!

12. That #$%^ing squatter that Mr. Residency Bert Odelson dug up gets a long swim along the shores of Old Man Chicago from Bubbly Creek to McCook. Call Deb Shore and get the blue MWRD tug.

President Bar-Frack(ing)* Obama. That's the ticket. He's no Fracking Hero to the Birkenstock Leftist Tree Huggers more worried about the one tree standing in Wyoming -"Dude we must save Big John from the Gas Man's Ax Man! Fracking will kill us all,"

The GOP knows how to lose an election. Democrats know how to win. The GOP needs to tap into the ideas and inclinations of Democrats disgusted with the people around President Obama - not President Obama, much less his wife and kids. President Obama fronts for some nasty and smart people who do not like religion, people who toil and pay taxes, people who really believe that America is the greatest nation on God's green earth, people who are appalled that we as a people consider the murder of children to be a civil right and health issue. You know what many, many many of those people happen to be Democrats.

The GOP, to this Democrat anyway, is the party that blows off its own toes with the regularity of Monsoons in Asia. The Elephant in the straw kelly still wears tasseled loafers and has acute memory loss - The Plutocratic Pachyderm forgot all of the lessons learned from Ronald Reagan - a Democrat most of his life.

Respect Real, Genuine Labor, people of all Faiths and people of little or know faith, and welcome them.

In 2008, I wrote an article for Chicago Daily Observer about a John McCain campaign event in Wisconsin. McCain was introduced by a dynamic young Congressman named Paul Ryan. During the Q & A, I had an opportunity to ask about School Choice. I prefaced my remark with "I'm a Chicago Democrat . . ." The boos flowed like it was Fat Tuesday.

Senator McCain did a head toss, followed by a smile of welcome that betokened an expectant hostility from me. I explained, should not have or had to do so, that I was a fan. Senator McCain quoted chapter and verse from his Campaign website's issues page. I was underwhelmed.

While the event was billed as an open forum, with no questions barred, the crowd Thursday was clearly in McCain's corner.

The only boos came when Pat Hickey stood up and identified himself as a Chicago resident and a Democrat. He quickly noted to applause: "There are a lot of us supporting Senator McCain."

Hickey, a teacher at a private school in Chicago, asked McCain about school choice, which McCain supports.

Other questions ranged from college affordability to the appointment of Supreme Court justices. All brought familiar responses.

One woman questioned McCain on the war and its cost to the economy.

"It's succeeding," McCain said of the war. "I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding."

Thursday's visit included an evening fund-raiser in Milwaukee, one of several held this week by the campaign in the days before the close of a reporting period Saturday.

McCain has languished behind Obama and Clinton in fund raising, though the national party has more in the bank than Democrats.

Money does not win an election. Political smarts and, or if absolutely necessary, basic honesty win an election. Barack Obama is President because of political smarts - he stayed on message - each day and every day. Since taking the oath

The GOP is bait. They are bait for the media, because they think that they can win them over. Not a chance. You have about as much chance of being media darling (Democrat or GOP), if you embrace the virtues of my first paragraph, as the establishment of a Knights of Columbus Charter at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or University of Chicago.

The media revels in the mythology of Mencken. Every silly little Medill School of Journalism wants to play at being an atheist/agnostic sojourner for truth. Therefore, if it is religious it is bad - Jewish, Catholic, or Protestant Evangelical.

Therefore, Rick Santorum, or Paul Ryan or Congressman Dan Lipinski (D.Chicago) will always be treated like lepers. Bart Stupak was UP Michigan Mossback Rube until his Come to Barack Moment in 2009.

You will not get anywhere with social issues - avoid them; get in the White House.

Never apologise and never explain. Rick Santorum has created a Cuisinart of Spinning Vegetables over this past weekend, when every one else wants to know how much longer the turkey will be in the oven. Meat first! Spoon vitals to pour on!

Stick to this GOP wannabees - President Obama is a nice guy with sharply creased britches and a taste for waffles. He is surrounded by Marxist ( but don't say Marxist - why belabor the obvious) courtiers, viziers, sneaks and bootlickers who are the Obama Regime. Obama is like King Louis in the Three Musketeers. He knows not what he does. His centurions are doing the scourging and the crucifying in his name.

As the great Chicago Democrat James "Skinny" Sheahan once told me, " You will never win the debate over abortion, because you are on the right side. Abortion is murder. Do not get trapped explaining your convictions with 'what if your daughter were raped? What if there was a bomb attached to the baby in the womb? The abortion issue will not be won on a Campaign trail. Stay away from it. Win the war one step at a time."

Santorum needs to fire some people and hire some Democrats who are not happy with the Obama Regime. Avoid Contraception! Let Cardinal Dolan bat that one into the cheap seats. Stay on the Regime, ignore the man.

Demand a budget! Demand a look into the Justice Department! Hammer away at Media Matters! It was handed to you guys use it! Stay away from stupid - short term subjects that matter only to Maddow, Matthews and MSNBC.

Back the Commander in Chief! You have the President's back on all foreign entanglements. Don't try to get cute; you're a goddam elephant, for Crissakes.

The economy is bad. That's it. The Bar Frack Obama Regime killed the oil and gas in Canada that is going to Red China and pumps will be $5 a gallon by Memorial Day. Say no more.

Get this straight, humans: President Obama is a friend of the oil and gas industry. The recent denial of the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline does not mean that Obama has changed his tune on unconventional natural gas. Obama himself has bought the industry hype that unconventional natural gas will liberate us from the “tyranny of oil.”

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Dad always said that I couldn't find my butt with both hands. I can. Allow me to add this imperative -“Defend the unborn against abortion even if they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court or kill you." - Pope Francis to celebrate Pro-life Mass, Vatican

About Me

A peach of a guy with all the sweetness one could expect from a life well-spent and in good company: short on brains but a terrific dancer!
Author:
Every Heart and Hand: A Leo High School Story
The Chorito Hog Leg, Book One: A Novel of Guam in Time of War